Developer Tea

When you are newly joining a team, you have a huge opportunity to do something that no one on the team has: to find your "weathervane." The pressure pushing against you to adopt the beliefs of the te…

Most people believe good things will happen by default.
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a downside to this endless optimism. You cannot will good things to happen, and when you don't pre…

Your team's process for managing a backlog is probably growing stale because you are running on habit rather than procedure.
Break out of procedure and remind yourself why you have a process to begin …

What is it about our present situation that changes our perspective? In today's episode we talk about the availability bias and why our present reality looms so large in our decisionmaking.

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What do you expect of yourself? Are you spending your time in ways that align with those expectations?

In this episode, I provide you a simple framework as a starting lens for getting a better idea of…

Almost every conversation you have will start with a question.
Have you stopped to listen closely? Questions are extremely meaningful and deeply human. Paying close attention to questions is a skill t…

How often does reality match your expectations exactly? Sure, you may guess in the ball park, but usually there are errors in our expectations.

In today's episode, I talk about a simple shift in think…

In this episode we continue a little mini-series called "Backlog psychology."

How do you get better at anything? (Hopefully you said "practice" almost instinctively.) What does good practice look like…

In this episode we continue the mini-series "Backlog psychology."

Would you rather have $5 now or $50 next week? The answer to this question, though it seems logically obvious which is better, does no…

In this episode we kick off a little mini-series called "Backlog psychology."

You've heard you should "limit your work in progress" - why? What makes more work in progress more difficult to handle?

Cog…

Your retros may feel like deadends where complaints go to die. If you're running retros and treating it only as an avenue for emotional support rather than continuous improvement, today's episode is …

Count the cost of learning. When you choose a path towards a goal, it's absolutely critical to optimize for the cost of learning. Often, with software, it is easier to learn by a series of smaller st…

Decisions are made in many ways, but one important type of decisionmaking tool is the "rule." This is something you follow without any cognitive processing.

But, we eventually develop rules as a part …

Are you stuck trying to prioritize your long list of things you need to do? Maybe you're trying to establish a habitual routine or areas of investment in your schedule, budget, or decisionmaking.

Figu…

Are you measuring the wrong thing for your short term game? If so, you probably continuously change directions and are never sure if anything you do is working. It's time to rethink your scoreboard.

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Your career doesn't have to take off without your approval. Slow down, and make sure you actually have goals you are setting. Control your own destiny by aligning your plan to your actual goal, or vi…

Accountability can be complex. When something goes wrong, fingers start flying: *someone* needs to be held responsible.

But true accountability starts before anything goes wrong. In this episode, we …

Improving your clarity is the beginning of your journey in engineering leadership. This takes courage and patience, but the investment will benefit everyone you influence, including yourself.

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If you've used the term Tech Debt, you probably know that the metaphor is loose at best. Taking on tech debt sometimes becomes a permanent choice, and the repayment isn't always a clear-cut investmen…

Negotiation is not about getting more of what you want out of another person. Real artful negotiation is about finding alignment, and solving the problems presented at a level of divergence.

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